What’s in a street name dinkus.
What’s In A Name delves into the fascinating stories and personalities behind some of the city’s best known street names.
This week the Journal looks at Gladstone Road which is named in honour of a family with an impressive political pedigree.
DANDENONG’S Gladstone Road has a familial link to a famous British Prime Minister.
William Gladstone, the fourth son of John and Elizabeth Gladstone, bought his family to Australia aboard the SS Victoria in November 1863.
Five years later his uncle William Ewart Gladstone was elected Liberal Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and served his first term until 17 February 1874.
He served as Prime Minister four times, more than any other person, and was Chancellor of the Exchequer four times.
Gladstone was Britain’s oldest Prime Minister and resigned for the final time in 1894 aged 84. He is considered to be one of the country’s greatest Prime Ministers.
Back in Australia, William and Mary had seven children, three of whom died before they arrived in Victoria.
The eldest child, David, came to Australia ahead of his parents on 5 November 1862.
One of David’s sons, Alexander, remained in Scotland.
The family was originally bound for New Zealand but when the Maori war broke out they changed their plans and instead decided to settle in Victoria.
They purchased property in the old Police Paddocks, Dandenong.
It is believed they lived in tents before a house was built by well-known Dandenong brothers the Orgills and named the property Gladstone Farm.
On 12 February 1870 William and Mary’s daughter Elizabeth Mary married John Orgill at the Presbyterian Manse in Collins Street, Melbourne.
She founded and ran the Birthwood Hydropathic hospital ’Gladstone House’ in Dandenong until 1911.
Prior to her marriage, Elizabeth was a governess to Captain Patterson’s children on his property near Cape Patterson.
Only three years after arriving in Victoria, William Gladstone died in the Melbourne General Hospital in April 1866 after a horse riding accident.
Because William Gladstone died without leaving a will, in 1869 Mary submitted an Affidavit to the Supreme Court claiming ownership of Gladstone Farm. Named as beneficiary were Alexander, David, Elizabeth Mary, William and herself.
In 1870 the property was sold to William Henry Delany.
Want to know the history behind a street name in Greater Dandenong.
Let us know and we’ll find out! Email journal@starnewsgroup.com.au.
– Sourced from the files of the Dandenong and District Historical Society
